Point Guard and the Scarecrow
by fishbunny
Summary: Professor Crane tries to be an optimist and Lyle Bolton is there to shut it down.


Author's notes: I always had a headcanon that Professor Crane is a closeted sports enthusiast. No pairings and some bad-ish language ahead. I just wanted to write something with Bolton.

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The gymnasium was noisy and the squeak of the inmate's generic, off brand sneakers - even noisier. The air was thick and permeating BO, but despite the smell of sweaty nutsack in the air and the straitjacket belts digging painfully too tight into his bony wrists, Professor Crane was having an otherwise good day.

Maybe 'good' was the wrong choice of word. He felt... 'okay.' And 'okay' was just about as 'good' as you could get at Arkham. So for the thousandth time in his life he would count his blessings, hoping but not too optimistic that this time it might make a difference.

'Optimistic...' He thought drolly. An outsider looking in would find nothing optimistic about his situation.

He was currently constrained at a 60 degree angle on a movable gurney being pushed around by his on duty nurse for the day, and if he were completely honest, it wasn't so bad.  
He had been emotionally and physically exhausted from the moment he forcefully opened his eyes that morning to the ridiculous reality that was his life, so the idea of not even having to think about moving today appealed to him. In retrospect he shouldn't have stabbed that man in the hand with his plastic cafeteria fork, but you live and you learn.

The gurney was comfortable enough and the pillow was fluffy, and the two teams on the basketball court riffing to each other along with the occasional cheer was a welcome background soundtrack. The only thing Jonathan would change would be his line of focus. He was directly under the beams of sun pouring in from the skylight, and his emaciated form that was normally always cold and shaky like some tweaked out chihuahua was sweating profusely under his heavy straitjacket.

Still, it was sunny, which was more proof that today was actually a good day. He was in Gotham and it was sunny. Gotham; the darkest, rainiest, most back-alley-rapiest city in the entire world and it was sunny.

Yes, today was good.

The pop of a can to his left brought him out of his thoughts and he knew Ms. Joyce had just opened up a can of ensure. His stomach soured immediately.

"Mr. Crane you barely ate your lunch today! Dr. Bartholomew won't be happy when I tell him! Here, you need some calories!" Ah, Ms. Joyce. With the small, friendly eyes and giant, toothy grin that took up her whole face. She had to be Jonathan's favorite, if only for the fact that she seemed to be incapable of not doing her job to the fullest extent possible. Some people were just born to care for others, and you really couldn't fault her for that.

"I'm fine," he said stiffly, eyeing the approaching straw with a high level of disdain. Ms. Joyce either didn't hear him or, more likely, completely ignored his rebuttal. The prodding piece of plastic incessantly poking at his tightly sealed lips was aggravating enough without her motherly coos of "open! Open Mr. Crane!" He knew he wasn't going to weasel his way out of his daily ensure battle like he could with the other nurses, so he begrudgingly opened his mouth and let her stick the apparatus inside, closing it around the straw and trying to suck down as much as he could as quickly as possible.

"There, don't you feel better already?"

He spit the straw out at that, confident that half the can would surely be enough. She put it down on the floor between her feet and began to wipe the side of his mouth with her handkerchief.  
He felt no guilt whatsoever as he twisted his head away like a petulant child.

"I was surprised when you said you wanted to go down to the gym."

"Why?" he asked, not meaning for it to come out as harshly as it did.

"I didn't think you liked sports."

He didn't. Or he didn't used to. And maybe he didn't like them now. But one thing Crane always enjoyed were the rules of sports. Perhaps as time went on people forgot that there were rules and opted more for the physical fight of the sport, yet the rules remained the same. Just the idea that a battle between two sides would even HAVE rules...yes, Professor Crane could appreciate sports.

"Eslewick, just what in the sweet Christ do you think you're doing? Huh?! Hustle, for god's sake!"

Professor Crane turned as much as his current holdings would allow him in the direction the voice was coming from. Chief of Security Lyle Bolton stood straight and proud, like some roided up statue of a basketball deity housed in an insane asylum. He held a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, gripped so tightly in his massive digits Jonathan was sure it would snap in two. The entire ensemble was topped off with a coach's whistle that could barely fit around his massive neck.

"I ask for defense and you give me terrible defense! I ask for basketball players and you give me the goddamn peewee shoot em' up team!" Professor Crane smirked in-spite of himself. Watching Lyle get riled up was one of his favorite pastimes in the recent weeks. As long as he wasn't on the receiving end of said outbursts, they were usually fairly exciting.

Lyle made to throw the clipboard down on the ground in frustration but thought against it at the last minute, seeming to regain his composure almost instantaneously.

"God DAMMIT." he ground in frustration, running a hand through his slicked back hair down to his neck. He flung the excess perspiration onto the ground before looking up suddenly. The eye contact was brief but Crane saw enough in those cold eyes to begin to worry before turning his gaze over to the benched players. Lyle went from looking frustrated to absolutely gleeful in an impressively short amount of time.

"Hey! Professor dick-nose!"

Jonathan looked up in-spite of himself, and would latter fume and obsess for weeks the fact that he responded to such a ludicrous title. But respond he most certainly did. He looked up just in time to barely acknowledge a basketball come soaring out of Lyle's hand directly towards his face. There was a loud crunch where the ball made contact with his prominent nose and he immediately saw stars, completely powerless to stop the noise that came out of his mouth.

"bwwaahh!"

"Ho ho! You see that, boys?" he heard Bolton address his team distantly, blinking furiously to try and regain his vision while Ms. Joyce blotted something soft on his face. "Now THAT is how you make contact! Do that with the net and we might just win this thing!"

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A/N: coach!Lyle is my jam


End file.
